Meet DORARPOL® – a talented illustrator and designer on 99designs. After winning a couple surf board contests, he got royalties from the board sales and proceeded to get a graphic design award in 2009.

I forget at what age I started to like the world of design. The first time I became interested, I only knew software from Windows Microsoft Paint. It had less makeshift tools and as design programs became more established, I was patient enough to learn. I learned how to combine colors when I drew a wolverine figure in the software.

Year after year, I continued to learn. Now, I use Coreldraw software and I love it! Coreldraw is my a perfect weapon for effects such as transparency.

How do you get your design inspiration?

My surroundings and keeping my dreams alive. My inspiration can be from what I see around me in nature to when my child is playing. Sometimes, I find inspiration through works of art. Anything and everything can help provoke designers to create a masterpiece.

My interest started when I won a couple of surf board contests. I got royalties for about two years from sales of the board and proceed to get a graphics award in 2009. After this, I began to recognize the contests.

August 2010, I started recognizing contest prizes offered by 99designs. The first win was a hard drive to survive and I continued to look through pages of available logo contests. Until recently, 99designs was my main source of design work.

This is where the world’s top designers compete. 99designs is happy to accept new designers without having to see their past work and experience. This is a place where designer are very pleased to be able to eat, sleep, study and work together.

The author

A Louisiana native, Allison moved to San Francisco and became the first Community Liaison at 99designs. Over the years, she established and lead several designer teams focused on supporting, educating and motivating 99d's global community of designers to reach their fullest potential. She loves advocacy work, design, psychology, and making real connections with humans all over the world.